13 Dec 2020: Damaged image links have been replaced, and pictures are again available to illustrate the narrative.
[NOTE: This post is somewhat modified from its original form. I have edited it for clarity and reorganized some paragraphs. I have also softened my original assertion that the special modifications to this gun were the work of King Gun Sight Company of San Francisco. King may have worked on this gun's action, but further study is needed to confirm that.]
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THE BASICS
Almost all .38/44 Outdoorsman production left the factory with the standard 6.5 inch barrel, but a small number of prewar guns were manufactured with five inch barrels. These are generally called McGivern Outdoorsman models because the famed exhibition shooter special ordered a few of them with the shorter barrel and a bead front sight of the type that bears his name. Not all five-inch ODs have McGivern front sights; some of these rarely seen guns thus don't follow the original McGivern specification but are still loosely classified as McGivern ODs because of the barrel length. At least one five inch OD is known with a conventional patridge sight, and another one that shipped with a McGivern bead front sight has a patridge sight now. The one that I discuss here has a Call bead front sight.
There seems to be no agreement on how many five-inch ODs may have been produced, though knowledgeable collectors assert the number is quite low and perhaps not more than 50. I'm not sure. At least 20 are known to collectors, which would imply that nearly half of all guns produced have been identified. That is a higher identification rate than usual for uncommon models, and I suspect the number of five inch ODs produced may have been somewhat greater than is usually asserted.
This gun, 46207, letters with the five inch barrel and a Call gold bead front sight (surface of inset bead flush or almost flush with the rear surface of the front sight blade) instead of the domed McGivern bead, which protrudes from the rear surface of the sight. The flat surface of this bead looks abraded to me, and I wonder if an original McGivern gold bead was filed down to create the Call configuration that the letter identifies and which is installed on the revolver now. This gun was shipped November 19, 1935 to Hoffman Hardware in Los Angeles.
THE SHORT-ACTION MODIFICATION
The original configuration for this specimen is interesting enough, but the gun is additionally interesting because the action was modified to create a shorter hammer throw. This modification, which resulted in a faster lock time, involved cutting off the hammer stud inside the frame and filling the hole in the sideplate which received the other end of the original stud. Then new holes were drilled in the frame and sideplate to relocate a hammer stud about one-eighth of an inch to the rear of and slightly above the original position, changing the geometry of the action. As in the case of the company's prewar short-throw action found only in the K-22 Second Model, or K-22/40, this mounting position required the back of the hammer body to be milled down so it would not conflict with the frame of the gun while pivoting back in either SA or DA mode. You can see that milled step in the hammer on this gun. The new stud penetrated the frame on the left side, slightly overlapping the original factory stud end. Note too the small relief cut at the very top of the hammer cutout in the frame; that is to accommodate the hammer nose, which is now positioned higher with reference to the frame than in the factory design. (Note too, though this has nothing to do with the action, that the rear sight notch is quite wide. I would have expected a U-notch sight would be used with a gold bead front sight, but an earlier owner liked this set-up.)
The name of the King Gun Sight Company and the year 1941 are stamped in the inner surface of the sideplate, which initially made me think the short action conversion was necessarily a King modification. But I am informed by a forum member who has a similarly modified .38/44 that the exact modification seen here was introduced by J.D. Buchanan in the mid-1930s. I suppose it is possible that the King shop adopted the Buchanan procedure and stamped their own name on the gun, or Buchanan may have done the modification himself at some other time. If that is the case, the King sideplate markings are associated with some other relationship between the King Company and this revolver.
Regardless of who worked on this gun, the King short-throw conversions were not cheap. In a trifold brochure that seems to date to the late 1940s or early 1950s, the short action modification for prewar S&W revolvers is priced at $20. That would have been a significant percentage of the gun's original purchase price just a few years earlier. I am informed that prewar King brochures priced the short action modification at $10, but it is not clear to me what the process entailed. King offered a short hammer throw conversion that involved a drop-in redesigned hammer and did not involve relocating the hammer stud. I do not know if they ever offered an earlier process that did require them to move the hammer stud.
In a thread from a couple of years ago, forum member keith44spl posted a short-action Outdoorsman conversion about which these same questions were raised. His gun did not have King markings, but it did have the same modification features as this gun. Here's a link to that earlier thread.
Pre-War Outdoorsman Short Action Pics Inside Edition
Some collectors will object to what they will regard as compromised authenticity in this uncommon specimen, but I am not among them. While modifications in general will rarely increase the appeal or value of a particular firearm, I believe that King modifications are among those that can add value to a specific gun -- or at the very least not injure it. While I am hesitant at the moment to assert absolutely that this gun was modified by King, it obviously has some association with the company. I will try to establish with greater certainty what that connection might be.
This uncommon OD is in pretty good condition. I would rate the finish preservation at about 95-96% because a few blemishes push it below the 98-99% range. Bore and chambers are bright. The action is miraculously crisp; whoever worked on it knew what he was doing. The excellent service stocks number to a different gun, 37002, which was probably a Heavy Duty; nearby serial numbers 36997 and 37003 were both HDs. This gun is missing the sideplate-mounted hammer safety block found in the company's 1930s-era revolvers. I wonder if something about the changes to the action made it not function properly. I wouldn't think so, because regardless of the changed radius of motion, the hammer's rest position would be the same (or virtually the same) between the factory and King versions, and the rest position is where the hammer is located when the safety block is protecting against drop-impact discharge.
Experimenting with the action shows that this gun (and presumably the similar short-throw conversions) could benefit from a trigger overtravel stop. After release, the trigger still comes back an unnecessary 1/16" or so while the hammer is falling. That probably wouldn't bother a shooter of Ed McGivern's skills, but wannabe precision shooters might benefit from the restricted trigger travel.
This gun won't get a lot of use, but I will shoot it a few times just to evaluate the experience.
Individuals who have five-inch prewar .38/44 ODs in their collections are invited to post pictures of them in this thread. I would appreciate learning serial numbers either from open posting or in PMs if owners would rather not disclose serial numbers in a public context.
The portion of a King brochure pictured above is from a 1982 reprint, not an original.
[NOTE: This post is somewhat modified from its original form. I have edited it for clarity and reorganized some paragraphs. I have also softened my original assertion that the special modifications to this gun were the work of King Gun Sight Company of San Francisco. King may have worked on this gun's action, but further study is needed to confirm that.]
- - - - - - - - - -
THE BASICS
Almost all .38/44 Outdoorsman production left the factory with the standard 6.5 inch barrel, but a small number of prewar guns were manufactured with five inch barrels. These are generally called McGivern Outdoorsman models because the famed exhibition shooter special ordered a few of them with the shorter barrel and a bead front sight of the type that bears his name. Not all five-inch ODs have McGivern front sights; some of these rarely seen guns thus don't follow the original McGivern specification but are still loosely classified as McGivern ODs because of the barrel length. At least one five inch OD is known with a conventional patridge sight, and another one that shipped with a McGivern bead front sight has a patridge sight now. The one that I discuss here has a Call bead front sight.
There seems to be no agreement on how many five-inch ODs may have been produced, though knowledgeable collectors assert the number is quite low and perhaps not more than 50. I'm not sure. At least 20 are known to collectors, which would imply that nearly half of all guns produced have been identified. That is a higher identification rate than usual for uncommon models, and I suspect the number of five inch ODs produced may have been somewhat greater than is usually asserted.
This gun, 46207, letters with the five inch barrel and a Call gold bead front sight (surface of inset bead flush or almost flush with the rear surface of the front sight blade) instead of the domed McGivern bead, which protrudes from the rear surface of the sight. The flat surface of this bead looks abraded to me, and I wonder if an original McGivern gold bead was filed down to create the Call configuration that the letter identifies and which is installed on the revolver now. This gun was shipped November 19, 1935 to Hoffman Hardware in Los Angeles.
THE SHORT-ACTION MODIFICATION
The original configuration for this specimen is interesting enough, but the gun is additionally interesting because the action was modified to create a shorter hammer throw. This modification, which resulted in a faster lock time, involved cutting off the hammer stud inside the frame and filling the hole in the sideplate which received the other end of the original stud. Then new holes were drilled in the frame and sideplate to relocate a hammer stud about one-eighth of an inch to the rear of and slightly above the original position, changing the geometry of the action. As in the case of the company's prewar short-throw action found only in the K-22 Second Model, or K-22/40, this mounting position required the back of the hammer body to be milled down so it would not conflict with the frame of the gun while pivoting back in either SA or DA mode. You can see that milled step in the hammer on this gun. The new stud penetrated the frame on the left side, slightly overlapping the original factory stud end. Note too the small relief cut at the very top of the hammer cutout in the frame; that is to accommodate the hammer nose, which is now positioned higher with reference to the frame than in the factory design. (Note too, though this has nothing to do with the action, that the rear sight notch is quite wide. I would have expected a U-notch sight would be used with a gold bead front sight, but an earlier owner liked this set-up.)
The name of the King Gun Sight Company and the year 1941 are stamped in the inner surface of the sideplate, which initially made me think the short action conversion was necessarily a King modification. But I am informed by a forum member who has a similarly modified .38/44 that the exact modification seen here was introduced by J.D. Buchanan in the mid-1930s. I suppose it is possible that the King shop adopted the Buchanan procedure and stamped their own name on the gun, or Buchanan may have done the modification himself at some other time. If that is the case, the King sideplate markings are associated with some other relationship between the King Company and this revolver.
Regardless of who worked on this gun, the King short-throw conversions were not cheap. In a trifold brochure that seems to date to the late 1940s or early 1950s, the short action modification for prewar S&W revolvers is priced at $20. That would have been a significant percentage of the gun's original purchase price just a few years earlier. I am informed that prewar King brochures priced the short action modification at $10, but it is not clear to me what the process entailed. King offered a short hammer throw conversion that involved a drop-in redesigned hammer and did not involve relocating the hammer stud. I do not know if they ever offered an earlier process that did require them to move the hammer stud.
In a thread from a couple of years ago, forum member keith44spl posted a short-action Outdoorsman conversion about which these same questions were raised. His gun did not have King markings, but it did have the same modification features as this gun. Here's a link to that earlier thread.
Pre-War Outdoorsman Short Action Pics Inside Edition
Some collectors will object to what they will regard as compromised authenticity in this uncommon specimen, but I am not among them. While modifications in general will rarely increase the appeal or value of a particular firearm, I believe that King modifications are among those that can add value to a specific gun -- or at the very least not injure it. While I am hesitant at the moment to assert absolutely that this gun was modified by King, it obviously has some association with the company. I will try to establish with greater certainty what that connection might be.
This uncommon OD is in pretty good condition. I would rate the finish preservation at about 95-96% because a few blemishes push it below the 98-99% range. Bore and chambers are bright. The action is miraculously crisp; whoever worked on it knew what he was doing. The excellent service stocks number to a different gun, 37002, which was probably a Heavy Duty; nearby serial numbers 36997 and 37003 were both HDs. This gun is missing the sideplate-mounted hammer safety block found in the company's 1930s-era revolvers. I wonder if something about the changes to the action made it not function properly. I wouldn't think so, because regardless of the changed radius of motion, the hammer's rest position would be the same (or virtually the same) between the factory and King versions, and the rest position is where the hammer is located when the safety block is protecting against drop-impact discharge.
Experimenting with the action shows that this gun (and presumably the similar short-throw conversions) could benefit from a trigger overtravel stop. After release, the trigger still comes back an unnecessary 1/16" or so while the hammer is falling. That probably wouldn't bother a shooter of Ed McGivern's skills, but wannabe precision shooters might benefit from the restricted trigger travel.
This gun won't get a lot of use, but I will shoot it a few times just to evaluate the experience.
Individuals who have five-inch prewar .38/44 ODs in their collections are invited to post pictures of them in this thread. I would appreciate learning serial numbers either from open posting or in PMs if owners would rather not disclose serial numbers in a public context.
The portion of a King brochure pictured above is from a 1982 reprint, not an original.
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